were establishing contacts with the Soviet Academy, sufficient provisions were not made for contact between American scientists and those in the refusenik status which they saw as lessening their prestige, making it impossible for them to stay on the cutting edge of their disciplines.

So, in their judgment it was worse than no agreement at all. I wonder if you could respond to that criticism on their part. Mr. PRESS. When we were in Moscow negotiating a new agreement with the Soviet Academy officers, we dispatched part of our delegation to meet with all the refuseniks. What could be a greater symbol than that? In the middle of the negotiations with the Soviets-we sent one-half of our delegation to meet with the refuseniks and assure them that we had their interests in mind.

In the absence of an agreement, they received no such visits from Americans. They received no materials from the West. If we send Americans to the Soviet Union, it is an opportunity for them to meet with their Western counterparts and have intellectual stimulation.

In the absence of an agreement we don't even have a vehicle through which to protest their treatment. However, in the presence of an agreement, where we meet with the officers of the Soviet Academy each year we can make such protests.

So, it is a judgment call.

If you put yourself in their position-they are so severely stressed and unhappy, their families are parted, many of them have been trying for 10 or 15 years to leave the Soviet Union-you can't blame them for simply trying as hard as they can, using every avenue to get some decent treatment.

So, although I feel that our agreement can't hurt them, and can actually help them, I can understand their position. I am sympathetic to their feelings.

FUTURE POLICY OF NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Mr. TORRICELLI. Tell me how this will proceed in the future. Is it your intent to, on an informal basis, take personal initiatives to make sure there is contact with refuseniks or will something more formal be worked into the exchanges?

Mr. PRESS. It will happen in a number of ways.

When I meet with the officers of the Soviet Academy each year, I will bring up the problem of the refuseniks. I will point out that there is no way they can achieve full cooperation with scientists in the Western world, either with the United States, or for that matter, with any other advanced nation, as long as this problem exists.

There has been a generational change in the Soviet Union. There is a new leader in the Kremlin. Perhaps we can make some progress. I don't know. But in the absence of formal communication we can't even try.

If any individual American scientist that we send to the Soviet Union wishes to visit the refuseniks-and I think that will happen, from my knowledge of the American scientific community-that is another plus.

Mr. TORRICELLI. If they are regularly denied access to the refusenik scientists, would you consider that a breach of either the letter or the spirit of the agreement with the Soviet Academy?

Mr. PRESS. It would not only be a breach, but it would constitute asymmetrical treatment, because Soviet scientists visiting this country can go almost anywhere. If there is a Soviet scientist in Washington, he can visit anybody he wants. Some even go on television and make a case for their own political position. Nobody stops them.

TERMS OF NEW NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AGREEMENT

Mr. TORRICELLI. I hope during the course of the agreement we get an opportunity to meet again and to ask on the progress of that and determine whether in fact, our own scientists are taking the initiative to meet with them and that access is granted.

I appreciate your response to that.

One of the comments I found heartening is that it was built into the agreement is the opportunity not only to attempt to respond to Soviet attendees, but to request those that you would like to see. Mr. PRESS. Yes.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Is this new in the operations of these exchanges, or have you had that ability before to actually request the names of leading people in the different disciplines?

Mr. PRESS. It is in the present agreement and it is a new initiative that I started during my term as president of the academy. Whether it was in the previous agreements, I don't recall, but it was not really used.

Was it in the previous agreement? This is Mr. Schweitzer who runs our program with the Eastern bloc countries.

STATEMENT OF GLENN E. SCHWEITZER, DIRECTOR, SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Mr. SCHWEITZER. There are two things that are new in this agreement.

There was a similar statement in previous agreements, that the receiving side could invite individuals and the sending side would attempt to facilitate such invitations.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Did we frequently exercise that right?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Not frequently. I would say in the course of 25 years we did so maybe, on an average of three or four times a year. Mr. TORRICELLI. How would you characterize the Soviet response when specific questions were made to see people not otherwise invited by Soviet authorities?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Twenty percent positive, or less. I would say that would be the upper limit. As I said, there are two new aspects of this agreement. One, the agreement specifically says that invitational visits will be a significant and important part of the exchanges. Two, when the academy officers meet, a required agenda item for discussion is the invitational visit provision.

To my knowledge, never in the past has there been a serious effort to engage in this kind of discussion, nor has the evaluation of performance been tied to the number of invitational visits accept

ed.

Mr. TORRICELLI. I think it was Dr. Noble who said that ultimate enforcement of Soviet behavior is if that they don't produce the highest quality personnel, the American scientists will simply lose interest in the exchanges.

That is our greatest protection.

I wonder if any of you in your own areas of work have seen evidence of that to date. Have you seen any waning interest of American scientists in participating because of a Soviet reluctance to bring their best talent forward?

Mr. PRESS. I have certainly seen it. But you see, our agreement is of a limited term. After a few years we will evaluate it. If the things we are trying to accomplish, in terms of access do not work out, I don't see any reason for continuing.

We would like to achieve quid pro quo on the agreement. As long as our community feels that they are obtaining reciprocal access, we will receive support from them. If we do not obtain reciprocity, they will drift away.

Mr. TORRICELLI. I assume this is everyone else's experience, that you have seen an impact of this on American scientists to date, at least to some extent?

Dr. VAUGHAN. Yes.

Mr. LEDERMAN. I think in my field the big gain is contact with the individuals, not so much with the facilities in the Soviet Union, but with the scientists that come here. That continues to be on a high level.

Where we are frustrated is at our important international meeting where a group invites specific Soviet scientists and they are not allowed to attend the meeting.

That is when the irritation and frustration goes to a high order.

REFUSENIKS AND THE SOVIET ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Mr. TORRICELLI. Let me return for a moment on the refusenik question.

In meeting with the leaders of the Soviet Academy and making points about refuseniks, I was startled at one point that one of the members said, "We don't need to be lectured on this. We look out for our own. We are not-we refuse to participate in actions against refuseniks. We are members of this academy. We are part of it."

It was a bold statement. Have you, in your time in working with the academy, seen anything to say that is true, that, in fact, within the Soviet system the academy does try to offer any protection or look out for its members, or are they cast adrift when identified by Soviet authorities?

Mr. PRESS. When you are elected a member of the Soviet Academy you belong to a special club.

There are certain advantages in terms of travel and in terms of access to facilities.

Mr. TORRICELLI. That is similar here. You get to come here to this committee, of course.

Mr. PRESS. Well, yes, but when you are elected to the Soviet Academy your pay doubles. When you are elected to the National Academy of Sciences, you receive a bill for dues.

Mr. LEDERMAN. Ten dollars.

Mr. PRESS. No; $50-you owe me $40.

Somebody like Sakharov is in trouble, but he still has certain protections, even though he is in exile.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Protections and perks that are protected by the academy.

Mr. PRESS. Well, an academician in the U.S.S.R. has a certain aura. Sakharov is treated very poorly though-don't get me wrong, to be exiled in Gorki

Mr. TORRICELLI. I understand what the State is doing. My point is, is the academy participating to the same

Mr. PRESS. He receives his pay.

Mr. TORRICELLI. To the same extent as the state's actions against him or is the academy allowing him to keep whatever rights and privileges he is entitled to under the academy rules?

Mr. PRESS. I don't think the academy would do anything contrary to the Soviet State's wishes. They might argue quietly on the inside against a certain action, but publicly they are very, very loyal and they are very supportive of the decisions of their government.

DO THE SOVIETS WITHHOLD INFORMATION IN EXCHANGES?

Mr. TORRICELLI. Let me move back again to the other point.

I have a variety of interests in this. This conversation taking place in the Soviet Union-what evidence have you seen or what have you been led to believe regarding the controls the Soviets, for security, are placing on the exchange of information?

In your experience, do you see a withholding of information? Do the Soviets, in fact, coordinate their presentations at exchanges to ensure there will not be a flow of information that, in turn, helps our own security efforts?

Mr. PRESS. The Soviets do restrict the transmission of prepublication drafts, or preprints, which is a very routine practice in western science. We send people our ideas in advance, in the way of manuscripts or draft papers. They need special permission to do that in the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet authors do publish in international journals, and they publish in their own journals to which we have access.

COORDINATION OF THE ACADEMY WITH SOVIET SECURITY INTEREST Mr. TORRICELLI. I was more curious about how well coordinated the academy is with Soviet security interests.

For example, in areas where there is real Soviet leadership and obvious advantages to us industrially and militarily-such as in metallurgy, other areas, too, of Soviet advances-do you sense among the various disciplines there are areas that, for no apparent explanation, there is much greater interest in cooperation, and in others, for no apparent reason, there is less willingness to exchange information and cooperate?

Do you sense this is a particularly well coordinated thing?

Mr. PRESS. I have reason to believe there is a closer connection between the Soviet Academy and their intelligence agencies than is

certainly the case in our country. How that manifests itself in terms of choosing areas of cooperation is hard to say.

I do believe that that intelligence connection is probably there, and that it has a purpose. From our point of view, our best protection is to work with them only when we can learn something from their scientists, who are operating at our level of capability, and to make sure that the Soviet scientists whom we accept are bona fide scientists as evidenced by a tangible record of publications in the literature.

THE VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGES

Mr. TORRICELLI. I favor the exchanges, and I encourage your work, but I remain skeptical. I wonder it is not the idea of exchanges rather than the benefits from it that keeps moving us forward.

I went with a delegation of NASA officials to visit the academy and the Soviet space facilities and went to each NASA official and asked them if they could list all the areas where we could gain knowledge from the Soviets. Each of them pointed out the cardiovascular effects of long-distance space flight, and I also had trouble getting the second, third, fourth, or fifth area.

There was so much enthusiasm for cooperation that tended to blind us to the reality that most of the advantages of exchange were the other way.

I am not concluding that that is the case here, only that in our enthusiasm, with the best of intentions, to facilitate exchanges we don't lose sight that it may all be in similar directions.

Mr. PRESS. That is a very good point.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you.

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Smith.

THE QUALITY OF SOVIET SCIENCE

Mr. SMITH of Florida. Let me ask you about the reality of the value of the exchanges in terms of strictly scientific and technological relationships.

In the August 1986 Discover magazine, that issue says in observation of scientific and technological competence that it is determined by the quality of a nation's science and the Soviet Union can be said to have failed in its attempt to achieve parity with the West.

The quality of its science and technology isn't commensurate with the quality and quantity of people working in those fields.

In fields in which the Soviets have been pioneers, such as lasers, superconductivity, and fusion power, the U.S.S.R. has made little progress after its fast starts.

Is it your view that Soviet science is hampered by the political system, the secrecy, and other destructive trends like antisemitism?

How much does that affect their ability to generate leaps forward to maintain a real science race with the West?

And in your renewed exchanges which have just taken place, what do you find in terms of the quality of the scientists as opposed to the exchanges in the mid-1970's?